John Milton was born on Bread Street, Cheapside, London, England on this day in 1608.

"On His Blindness" by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact... View details ⇨

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
―LES MISÉRABLES by Victor Hugo

It has been said that Victor Hugo has a street named after him in virtually every town in... View details ⇨

“He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.”
―from TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

Though its fame as an icon of twentieth-century literature rests primarily on the brilliance of its narrative technique and the impressionistic beauty of its prose, To the Lighthouse is above all the story of a quest, and as such it possesses a brave and magical universality.... View details ⇨

The New Yorker writer and cartoonist James Grover Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio, on this day in 1894.

"The Dickinsons' pup was a failure. A bull terrier, a female and a failure. With all of life before her, she had suddenly gone into a decline. “She is pining away,” said Dick, “like a mid-Victorian lady whose cavalier rode off and never came back."
―from “Josephine Has Her Day” by James... View details ⇨

Quintus Horatius Flaccus was born in Venusia, Italy, Roman Republic on this day in 65 BC.

"Carpe Diem" by Horace

Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,
whether your fate or mine, don’t waste your time on Babylonian,
futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens,
whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one,
one debilitating the... View details ⇨

"Ain't it wonderful, Jim, how much people can mean to each other?"
―from MY ANTONIA (1918)

Of Ántonia, the passionate and majestic central character in Willa Cather’s greatest novel, the narrator, Jim Burden, says that she left “images in the mind that did not fade–that grew stronger with time.” The same is true of the book in... View details ⇨

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
―"Elective Affinities" (1809) by Goethe

One of the towering figures of world literature, Goethe has never held quite as prominent a place in the English-speaking world as he deserves. This collection of his four major works, together with a selection of his finest letters and poems, shows that he is not only one... View details ⇨

This month marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Fyodor Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, originally published in twelve monthly installments in 1866.

"On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. Bridge."
―from CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (1866)

“She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.”
―from CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?

Trollope’s stock-in-trade was the life of the great drawing rooms of mid-Victorian England, where the thirst... View details ⇨

Didion’s incomparable and distinctive essays and journalism are admired for their acute, incisive observations and their spare, elegant style. Now the seven books of nonfiction that appeared... View details ⇨

The character - our willingness to take responsibility for their own lives - is the source from which self-respect springs.
Self discipline, habit of mind in which a person can not pretend, but can it develop, train, moving forward.
The idea that we can say "no" and is set reproach and censure himself then isolate us in this game .... Each meeting requires too much - tears nerves. Drains will.-J.Didion

E'en as the sculptor chisels patiently
The marble's jagged edges, day by day,
Striving to smooth all blemishes away,
Till—when from ev'ry flaw the stone is free,
And naught save perfect contours does he see—
Embodied harmony and beauty may
Atone for all the weary hours' delay,—
So Life, the sculptor, moulds unceasingly
The soul of man. How... View details ⇨

Christina Georgina Rossetti was born in London, England on this day in 1830.

"A Birthday" Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

On this day in 1916, W. Somerset Maugham departed on a voyage to Pago Pago. Characters he met on the voyage, including a prostitute and a missionary, inspire the story “Miss Thompson,” which is published in his 1923 story collection, The Trebling of a Leaf. The story becomes the play "Rain".

"'Miss Thompson was sailing with you to Apia, so I`ve brought her along here.' The quartermaster... View details ⇨

"Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable."
―from ANNA KARENINA (1875-1877) by Leo Tolstoy

A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy... View details ⇨

Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born near in Terekhove near Kiev, Russian Empire on this day in 1857.

"I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat,... View details ⇨